by Kaja Foglio
Riding above the crowd, Krosp noticed a snail-seller pause. The man began looking around wildly. Krosp sniffed. Was that coal gas?
With a roar, a column of flame erupted from the nearest lamppost, sending the snail-seller stumbling back until he collided with his cart.
The crowd screamed. Some in fear, some in delight. This only intensified as, one by one, other lampposts also burst into flame. Soon every street was lined with brightly burning posts.
Gil stared. “This is no ordinary gas leak! What—” He turned back to his companions, and saw the look on Vanamonde’s face. He grabbed the man’s coat and dragged him closer. “Von Mekkhan! You know what this is?”
Van’s eyes looked like they had seen something impossible. “The Lady Heterodyne,” he said, gesturing at the lamps. “She must have woken something. The town is… is beginning to defend itself.”
Gil looked at him blankly. “Defend itself from what?”
Aboard the pink airship serenely drifting above Bill and Barry Square, things were quiet. The lights had been dimmed to night-watch levels. The only oddity a seasoned flyer would have noticed would have been gleaned from the gauges and dials themselves, which revealed that the batteries and boilers were still operating at full strength. Usually at night they would have been switched off and set to standby mode.
Captain Abelard grimaced as he checked his instruments for the hundredth time that day. An airman learned that as far as airships were concerned, less was better. This naturally led to an abhorrence of waste and the thought of fuel being burned while the ship simply hovered gnawed at him. The only balm was the agonized grousing of Duke Strinbeck, who was apparently the man paying for it all.
The captain glanced over at the man responsible for this “wasteful extravagance” and sighed. Kraddock was a damn fine wheelman and no mistake, but right now he looked like a middie who’d been given the wheel for the first time and told, in strict confidence, that the only reason the ship stayed up was because the wheelmen kept telling themselves that they were really birds.
The thought brought a touch of a smile to the captain’s mouth. He’d always loved that one. But not here. Not now.
The second mate came onto the bridge. Shift change already? Indeed it was. Lieutenant Waroon activated the shipboard intercom and deliberately rang the ship’s bell twice, paused, and then once again. “Three Bells,” he announced. “Stand down for the Night Crew!”
The Night Crew, who, as tradition demanded, had stood off the bridge until it was their time, entered and went through the official turnover procedure.
Captain Abelard ran a tight ship, but a happy one, and so the crew felt free to chat briefly, not that there was much to report. As Ensign Stross reported to his replacement, “Dead simple and boring all the way, Mate.”
But, as the captain had expected, there was trouble with Kraddock. His replacement stood by and requested the wheel but the old man refused to relinquish control.
Abelard sighed. It happened sometimes. “Airman’s Grip” they called it, when, for whatever reason, a crewman latched ahold of something and simply refused to let go, convinced that if they did something terrible would happen.
It usually was the signal that an airshipman was ready to settle down and leave the air. The captain shook his head. He’d have never in a million years have thought that would happen to an old cloudnuzzler like Kraddock.
He stepped over, and spoke in a low, but firm voice. “Hey, old timer, shift’s over.”
Kraddock turned and saluted sharp enough, but his face was enough to cause the captain to draw in a quick breath. The wheelman was sweating like a ballast tank and his eyes looked like a pair of bloodshot boiled eggs. The captain wondered if he had blinked in the last several hours.
“Something is wrong, Captain,” the old man said. “I can feel it.”
Sturgeon, the other wheelman, rolled his eyes. “Patch the gas leak on him, will you, sir?” he appealed to the captain. “He’s been like this all day.”
“And don’t I know it. Ensign Kraddock, you are relieved—”
He was interrupted by one of the spotters. “Captain! Fire on the ground!”
The captain paused. “Let me see.”
The spotter pointed to a small park near the castle. Sure enough, it appeared that one of the lampposts was on fire. Odd.
The captain nodded. “Very good, Mr. Owlswick. Helio the coordinates to the town watch and—”
“No!”
The bridge crew turned as one man and stared at Duke Strinbeck as he stepped onto the bridge. Captain Abelard took a deep breath. Now what? “Your Grace?”
The Duke crossed his arms. “No communication with the town until Oublenmach gives the order. Were we unclear?”
The captain frowned. “But, your Grace, fire spotting is one of an airman’s sacred duties.”
The Duke waved a hand dismissively. “I am your employer, and I don’t give a bent gear about your ‘sacred duties.’ You will—”
“Another fire!” This time it was the starboard spotter.
Both the captain and the Duke paused.
“And another!” This time it was the navigator, peering out the windows.
“Two more over here!”
Mr. Owlswick gasped. “I don’t believe it! Sir! There’s dozens of them! Everywhere!”
“GET US OUT OF HERE!” Kraddock’s shriek caused everyone to leap into the air. “NOW!”
So frantic was the man that two of the bridge crew grabbed him as he tried to head towards the captain. “He’s gone mad!” one of them shouted.
Kraddock ignored them and addressed the captain, desperation in his voice. “Captain! Get us up! Get us out of Mechanicsburg airspace!” Kraddock’s hand, dragging one of the men holding him, pointed towards the ground, where hundreds of sparks could now be seen below. “It’s the Torchmen!”
Captain Abelard drew in a sharp breath as the old stories roared through his mind, but before he could say anything there was the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked. Silence fell instantly. The Duke pointed his weapon at Kraddock. “I will shoot any man who tries to move this ship,” he said coldly.
Fury filled Captain Abelard. “Get that gun off of my bridge,” he roared, shaking a fist.
Strinbeck stared back. “Don’t touch me. We stay here!”
This galvanized Kraddock, who again began to thrash against the men holding him. “Take us up!” he screamed. “We’ll all die!”
Strinbeck’s eyes narrowed and he placed the barrel against Kraddock’s temple. “You will die now unless you shut up.”
“And don’t threaten my crew,” the captain snarled.
The two glared at each other. The pause was broken by Mr. Owlswick’s shout. “Captain! The fires! They…Sir, they’re moving!”
Captain Abelard froze. “It is the torchmen,” he breathed.
Strinbeck rolled his eyes. “I don’t like your tone, hireling.”
Captain Abelard had seen military action, fought hand-to-hand against pirates, and was once the last man standing at the end of a glorious fight at Montgolfier’s Rest—the notorious airshipman’s bar in Paris—but the punch that he landed upon Strinbeck’s jaw was the most satisfying one he had ever thrown. The aristocrat went down like a cut sandbag and crashed to the deck, motionless.
“That’s Captain to you,” Abelard snarled. Then he grabbed the intercom. “All hands,” he roared. “Dump all ballast! Emergency climb! Engines ahead full! We are birds! Fly for your lives!”
Immediately the report came back. “Ballast dropped, sir!” They could feel it in their guts when the ship lurched beneath their feet.
The bridge crew took over.
“Engines to speed.”
“All hands rig for pressure loss!”
“Full speed ahead, Mr. Ajayi. What’s our bearing?”
“Due North, sir.
“Due North it is.”
Below, over a thousand fires burned. At the heart of each fire, a dec
orative gargoyle—one atop each of the town’s lampposts—shivered and swiveled its head upward, seeking until it found the rapidly climbing airship.
There was a great cracking sound across the town, and the burning figures stood atop their posts. There was another great snapping and hundreds of sets of flaming wings extended. They reached down in unison and, grasping the center light globe, drew it forth, revealing a long, steel lance. As one, they all pointed their lances at the little airship and launched themselves upwards.
Aboard the airship, the great flaming swarm of torchmen could be seen coalescing above the town and heading towards them in a tight spiral.
“They’re coming right at us!” Mr. Owlswick shouted.
“Engine’s in the yellow,” the engineer reported.
The captain stared at the advancing wave. He didn’t like what the trigonometry was telling him. He again grabbed the intercom.
“All hands! This is an Emergency Dump! Food! Fuel! Ammo! Everything!”
The bridge crew looked shocked. This was a desperate measure indeed. Reserved for those situations where every gram made a difference in weight and speed.
Behind him, Kraddock, now a model of professionalism, smacked the back of both wheelmen’s heads. “Hold your wheels!”
Hands that had gone lax snapped back to true North. One of the newer wheelmen, called out: “Kraddock! You know about these things. How far will they follow us?”
The old man’s eyes went distant. “If you’d live to see the end of day, from Mechanicsburg you’ll two leagues stay.”
Silverstein looked lost. “Two leagues? Um…whose leagues?”46 He thought again. “And what’s that in kilometers?”
Kraddock stared at him. “How the freefalling hell should I know,” he roared. “We just stayed away from the damned place!”
Lieutenant Lorquis removed a set of earphones. “Sir! Chief says that he’s dumped everything but the bag!”
Mr. Owlswick piped up. “They’re still gaining, sir.”
The captain thumped a fist down on a bulkhead. “Blast! There’s got to be something we can toss!”
“You scum!” The voice caught everyone by surprise. It was Duke Strinbeck. He had pulled himself up to a sitting position. “You dare to strike my royal personage? I’ll have every member of your crew flayed alive! I’ll see to it that you never collect a pfennig of your pensions! You’ll never fly again!”
Lieutenant Lorquis exchanged a glance with the captain. Occasionally, problems solved themselves.
Less than a minute later, the two men returned to the bridge. Lorquis ran his tongue over a split lip. The captain fussed at a lost button.
“That did it, sir,” Mr. Owlswick sang out. “We’re pulling ahead.”
This announcement fell flat. The rest of the bridge crew was tense and silent. Lorquis took a deep breath. “So, uh, Captain…we pirates now?”
The captain froze, and then deliberately stood tall and brushed off his coat. “No. He didn’t count. I’ll log him in as ‘Lost Due to Own Stupidity.’”47
The lieutenant and the rest of the crew relaxed. “Just checking, sir!”
The navigator called out, “Heading, Captain?”
Ah, now that was a question. Captain Abelard had had a belly-full of these conspirators, but they were powerful, there was no denying that. He had to think carefully about what came next. Or so he believed.
“Whoa!” That was Van Loon, one of the wheelmen. “Captain! Clouds moving in fast out of the West! I’ve never seen—”
“Wait.” Kraddock gasped. “Hard to starboard!”
The wheels spun and the bridge crew was suddenly blinded as they were caught in a web of searchlight beams. Castle Wulfenbach’s spotters had seen them and now the enormous grey expanse of dirigible loomed before them. Apparently Castle Wulfenbach had been running dark, but now decided that this was pointless. Thousands of lights burst forth from the structures covering her hull, making it appear as if a flying city were bearing down upon them.
“Captain! We can’t let them delay us! The torchmen are still following us.” It was the new kid who suggested it. “If we slide around ’em, then the torchmen will go after them, and we can—”
Kraddock’s fist slammed into the kid’s jaw, and the other airmen nodded grim approval. Sometimes airmen fought other airmen, it was true, but that was under orders or for similarly good reasons. Until then, you were all part of the Brotherhood of the Skies.
“Heliographs,” Captain Abelard roared. “Signal flares! Sound the sirens! Warn them what’s coming and tell them we offer all aid and assistance!” He then grinned at his crew. “And I’ll bet that’s the first time anyone’s said that to the flyin’ whale.”
The crew chuckled as Captain Abelard gazed back at the onrushing wave of flaming death. And I’ll also bet they’ll take it, he thought.
On the ground below the crowd oooh’d and ahh’d as the torchmen rose after the rapidly departing dirigible. A few tasteless people were noisily taking bets as to whether or not the craft would escape.
Gil heard Vanamonde sigh with pleasure. The young man was staring upwards, possessive pride radiating from him like a beacon. He saw Gil looking at him and he pointed upwards. “Look at them! Still operative after all these years!”
Yes, Gil thought to himself. Father will be annoyed that he missed that.
Van continued, “Back then, ‘Made in Mechanicsburg’ really meant something!”
Gil pondered this as he stared upwards. Something about the patterns of the flying looked…off to him. “If I remember correctly, it usually meant ‘death and destruction.’”
Van shrugged. “That’s still something.”
The meaning of what he was seeing became clear, and Gil gasped as a dozen flaming machines smashed to earth. Instantly, Van was all business. “Fire fighters,” he shouted. “To your stations!” His voice seemed to break the spell and dozens of locals threw down their drinks and raced off into the night.
Van frowned as a few more of the torchmen hit the ground.
“I don’t understand,” Krosp muttered. “That airship isn’t shooting at them.”
Van looked embarrassed. “They haven’t been properly maintained. Not since the Castle was damaged. Since the Baron took over, we haven’t even dared test them.”
“And yet she still got them running.” The admiration and excitement was obvious in Gil’s voice. “She’s amazing. Together we will—”
Krosp batted at his ear. “Focus! We’ve got a problem!”
Everyone gasped. The Castle Wulfenbach airship had now appeared from out of the clouds. It was clear even from the ground that it was the torchmen’s new focus, and—unlike the tiny pink dirigible—the capital of the Empire was equipped to fight back.
Almost as one, a hundred anti-aircraft guns flashed. Several seconds later, the sound of the fusillade reached the people on the ground, rolling over them like a continuous roar of thunder. Dozens of torchmen exploded into burning fragments. Now the hundreds of smaller support ships that traveled with the behemoth airship could be seen, and they also began firing. Unfortunately, their presence complicated the battle. The compact group of torchmen broke apart and spread out. Weaving and ducking amidst the flock of ships attacking them, grazing envelopes, igniting gondolas, leaving trails of burning devastation behind them, they made it almost impossible for the Wulfenbach ships to fire on them without hitting their own allies.
Before long, several of the smaller ships could be seen bursting into flame and spiraling down to the ground. Luckily, it appeared that all of them would fall to earth outside the city limits.
Gil stared upwards, aghast. “This will complicate things. My father is already convinced that she’s a threat, but I don’t think he’d considered her effect upon Mechanicsburg itself. There’s no way he’ll listen to me now.”
Krosp sounded worried. “So what can we do?”
Gil nodded. “I do have an idea,” he admitted, “but it’s a bit desperat
e.” He signaled to the others and then took off in a slightly different direction. “The only uncertainty,” he muttered, “revolves around just how much my father actually cares about my physical well-being.”
They rounded a corner and Gil gasped as Krosp’s claws sank into his head. Behind him, the remnant of the crowd that had kept up shuddered into silence and began skidding to a halt at the sight before them.
A full squad of Wulfenbach troops filled the street: two dozen troopers armed with rifles, their bayonets glittering in the light from the surrounding fires. Three of the tall brass trooper clanks, armed with machine-cannons, loomed behind them. Bringing up the rear was a gigantic green-furred monstrosity wearing a set of goggles and a tall plumed hat.
At the head of this assemblage was Captain Vole. When he caught sight of Gil, his mouth split open in a fang-filled grin. He pointed dramatically at Gil’s chest with a clawed finger. “Hokay, brat! Hy haff been charged by hyu poppa mit collectink hyu, end escortink hyu beck to Castle Wulfenbach, vere hyu vill be safe!
“Hy haff been also told dot Hy ken beats der schtuffinks out uv hyu if hyu giffs me teeny veeniest problem. Hyu gots dot?”
Gil turned to Krosp, Zeetha, and the others. A small tear trickled from his eye. “He really does care. This is perfect!”
Krosp flattened his ears. “How is this perfect?”
Gil spoke rapidly. He could feel the blood coursing through his head. It was perfect! It would work! And he could help Agatha… “Here’s the plan. I’ll escape from this fool and then let everyone see me entering the castle!”
Krosp’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy?”
Vole nodded matter-of-factly. “Yez! He iz in de madness place! He iz capable uf ennyting!” He turned to the green behemoth. “Sergeant! Take him out qvikly!”
“Yes, this will work,” Gil said with confidence, his voice rising with the excitement of a Spark working on a new scheme. “My father probably won’t destroy the castle once he knows I’m inside! At least, not right away—OW!”
He turned to Krosp, who had dropped to the ground and was furiously scrubbing away at his mouth. “You bit me.”